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LIF-ting Hippo averts metastasis

Nature Medicine volume 18, pages 1463–1465 (2012)Cite this article

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Reactivation of 'metastasis suppressor' genes holds great promise for the treatment of incurable malignancies. To date, only a few of these genes have been identified. A new study shows that breast cancer metastasis can be blunted by leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) signaling through regulation of the Hippo pathway, linking metastatic growth to the regulation of a pathway involved in building organs during development (pages 1511–1517).

The cure of most cancers will ultimately depend on our capacity to treat patients with metastatic cancer. Surgery and adjuvant therapy can effectively eradicate the majority of primary tumors but are not adequate for patients with disseminated secondary tumors1. A better understanding of the molecular drivers of metastasis will allow the development of prognostic markers to identify patients with cancer who will suffer metastatic relapse, predictive markers of treatment response to guide the selection of existing or experimental therapies, and new therapeutic agents that are sorely needed1.

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Figure 1: LIFR is an upstream regulator of the Hippo pathway.

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  1. Stefano Piccolo is in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Padua School of Medicine, Padua, Italy.,

    Stefano Piccolo

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  1. Stefano Piccolo
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Correspondence to Stefano Piccolo.

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Piccolo, S. LIF-ting Hippo averts metastasis. Nat Med 18, 1463–1465 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.2955

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